I've written about Brazil pre-Lula and post-Lula and spent the last five years covering all aspects of the country for Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and Barron's. Meanwhile, for an undetermined amount of time, and with a little help from my friends, I will be parachuting primarily into Brazil, Russia, India and China. But will also be on the look out for interesting business stories and investing ideas throughout the emerging markets.

The couple, Ronald Munk and Priscilla Celeste, were looking for a new beamer when a salesman saw the child wandering around nearby and asked the child to leave. The news sent mild shockwaves in the Brazilian press as the country still struggles with rampaging racial inequality.

The salesman told the couple, according to Priscilla’s account with G1: “You can’t stay in here. This isn’t a place for you. You have to leave.” The salesman then told Priscilla that poor children often come into the car lot asking for money. When they told him that the boy was their son, his “mouth fell open in embarrassment,” the couple said.

Ronald told G1 that nothing like this has happened before with his 7 year old son. The boy asked why he was asked to leave, “when the store has a room with a TV playing cartoons for children,” G1 reported. Priscilla said that she thinks her son understood why he was kicked out of the dealership.

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The couple should press charges against that employee of that BMW dealership where the incident happened. Racism (if proven, of course) is a crime in Brazil.

“I hope that they will not buy a BMW.. at least!”

I hope so too, even if BMW will do it’s best by giving them a deal/discount or whatever.

BMW and other businesses who have racist or racist wannabe employees should be taught a lesson by all Brazilian consumers..money talks.

“Indignai-vos!!! Indignez-vous!!! Time for Outrage!!!” Yeah really? No, it’s time for action plus you should be outraged at your people in Brazil who still have that mindset that Blacks and Indiginous are inferiour. Educate your people and your leaders on local, state and federal level. And lets get this straight, it’s education, so NO NEW LAWS/REGULATIONS, just inforce the one that already exist and teach that to everybody there : Racism is a crime in Brazil.

“Brazil, this is the country of the World Cup. We treated like this our people. Really lamentable.”

Willer get a life, you are lamentable. First, the world cup has NOTHING to do with this case. You’re acting as if all Brazilians the whole day only think about football, which is nonsense and you know that yourself. That the world cup is being held in Brazil, so what, it’s good. Who is we? Speak for yourself. There are PLENTY of Brazilians who are against it, but only BRAH BRAH BRAH about it (on the street, table or online. A minority really tries hard to fix this problem with writing to BMW Brasil (by email, or letter or whatever action they use) to teach their employees to behave and to treat all their clients and kids equal.

Clarice, if you are ashamed of your country, you should leave, you are free to leave, nobody but yourself holds you there. You should be ashamed of yourself by doing noting about it. If you so angry do something about it. If you can’t, shut your pie hole and don’t blame the country. This problem HAS NOTHING to do with Brazil as a nation, it has to do with people in Brazil who need more or better education. Put that into your head. Now, by saying that, we can all complain about the education (we have been doing that for years, complain, complain, complain) our leaders on local, state and federal level, bla bla bla, but it’s our responsibility, we the people, can only fix this problem (include our educational problem), by taking action.

K Rapoza, thanks for sharing on Forbes this copy and paste from globo (you are indeed just like your leftist hero anderson blooper from that cartoon network news, who copy and paste alot). You’re showing that Brazilians in Brazil, the most multi ethnic nation on earth, still has a long way to treat each other equal. To be fair, racism is unacceptable but it will always exist in our society, but again, that does not mean we should accept it, because we should not. it’s stupid, uneducated but for cry out loud, stop bitching about it, do something about it, take action.

unfortunately prejudice is not something we as a people can eradicate. in it’s essence, it is a formulation of ones mentality, nourished by family and social non-acceptance. this is not something born over night. this is a mind set born through years of racial intolerant lessons taught by elders to young minds during the developing years of the mind. once you understand that, you’ll se that the only way to really turn the tide is to strive to educate the younger generations to come. however even in saying so, i still believe that it is a losing battle.

Sounds like racism was involved in this case…. however, I remember getting Kicked out of RadioShacks and other stores as a kid.. but I never really attributed it to being kicked out for being hispanic… rather because I was kid messing with their computers.. but this was in the US in the late 80′s and early 90′s..

Sorry about the second comment… Forbes: We need an “edit” option! .. I was going to add that my brother (hispanic too of course) was asked at a Lexus dealer if he was there to clean one of their showroom cars by the sales guy. The Sales guy was embarrassed when my brother told him, he was ready to write a check to take one of their SUV’s home but now he would go to another dealership. He ended up buying a BMW….

This prejudice occurs everyday for people of color all around the world, not just in Brazil. I am glad it happened to a person who has “white” parents as the world is under the mistaken belief we live in a “COLOR BLIND” society. As a person of color we are judged negatively in every situation despite having attended ivy league and prestigious universities, having stellar credentials and having lived peaceful lives.

Many people of color remain in poverty as they can not handle the trauma and stress of racism. It causes high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes. low self-esteem and heart attacks. Real Democracy transcends color and class prejudices

This doesn’t entirely sound like this was an issue of race, it was a kid at a car dealership and he told the kid to leave because why would a kid need to be there in the first place? The only mistake was not knowing the kid was with his parents and assuming he was a random kid from off the streets. I didn’t watch the video but if its just like the article, I couldn’t find anything racial about it.

Their ass would send me a BMW for free apologize to my child in person and I would ask them to speak out about racism. If not sue. What if the child was asked to leave and kidnapped? Like the man who host Americas Most Wanted.